


Seal of Approval

by kastron (decidueye)



Category: Leverage, Supernatural
Genre: 'The Talk', Crossover, F/M, Jo kicks ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 16:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decidueye/pseuds/kastron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo ignores her mother's demands to 'leave it alone' and sets out to discover exactly what Eliot Spencer's intentions are towards Ellen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seal of Approval

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Telaryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/gifts).



Ellen sees Eliot out at around seven in the morning, smiling against his lips as he kisses her goodbye and promises he’ll be in town again soon. She watches him leave – walking, she doesn’t know where he hides his car, or if he even has one – and doesn’t notice Jo leaning against the bar until she clears her throat. Her daughter’s arms are folded, and she’s biting her lip. Ellen guiltily runs a hand through her hair and stops to face Jo; there’s no point in trying to hide what just happened.

”You’re letting your guard down.” Jo comments, and Ellen snorts, waving a dismissive hand.

”Or I’m just getting old.” She retorts, but neither of them are buying it. This is the fifth time that Eliot has been to see her in the past three months – and, for both of them, that counts as a lot – and the nights spent with him have mellowed her, just a little. She missed the start of a bar fight last week, didn’t even think to step in until the first punch had been thrown, and that’s not like her at all. Dean had asked her if she was sick. Jo continues to stare her down, and Ellen sighs, spreading her arms in a gesture of surrender. Jo’s expression softens, sympathetic.

”This is more than just stress relief, isn’t it?” She asks, and Ellen looks away. “He means something. To you.” Jo exhales, and it almost sounds like a laugh, “I’m not gonna care, Momma.”

Ellen hesitates. She owes her daughter the truth, really, and Jo’s not the sort to be so hung up on her daddy that she wouldn’t want her mother to be happy. It would just be a lot easier if Ellen could only figure out what the ‘truth’ she owed really was. She shrugs.

”C’mon, Jo.” She responds, derisive, “What he does; what  _we_  do. Anything more wouldn’t be easy – hell, it’s impossible.”

”But you want it?” There is a long pause, heavy with images of what happened that night. What she has with Eliot is passion; hot and desperate attempts at blurring out their pasts, but recently there’s been…something else. He stays, and the tension’s gone from his shoulders, the knot untying itself in her chest. Comfort is a scary thing in her world, but she hasn’t yet had the guts to chase it away. Ellen shakes her head, casting the thoughts aside, and moves past her daughter without making eye contact, though she grasps her shoulder affectionately.

”Get some sleep, sweetheart,” she says, and then pauses, turning back to study her daughter. The girl’s –  _woman’s_  - expression is set, so like her father’s once was, and Ellen knows she’s in for some trouble. “And don’t meddle with this; it doesn’t concern you.”

Ellen ignores Jo’s soft retort of “but it does” as she climbs up the stairs towards the shower, ready to face another day of rowdy patrons and eavesdropping on the grapevine to find out where Eliot might be headed.

 

* * *

 

Of course, Jo can’t let the night’s conversation go and she spends the next three weeks mulling it over. She watches her Momma grow increasingly concerned as Eliot fails to show, and her opinion of the guy – basically a stranger, it’s not like he’d ever really stopped to chat with her on any of his ‘visits’ – was dropping even further. Hunters could always find ways to pass on messages, through Bobby or partners or hell, even picking up a goddamn phone;  _Eliot_  didn’t seem to have the respect to do any of that.

When Eliot does finally return, clutching his stomach and covered in bruises, Ellen isn’t even in. Jo’s about to tell him so, opening her mouth to send him on his way so that her mom can finally move on with her life when she notices that he’s bleeding all over the bar. Jo curses, moving to support him in three quick strides and batting away Eliot’s attempts at refusing her help.

”Shut up and sit down.” She says bluntly, taking him into the back room and gesturing to a chair. He sits down heavily next to Ash, who is working on a laptop and looks up with raised eyebrows at their entrance. It takes Ash a few seconds to realise who the stranger is, and Jo speaks before he can make any sort of cutting remark.

”Go cover the back.” She tells him, and Ash does, though not without throwing an excited grin and eyebrow waggle behind Eliot’s back.

”I should call her, right?”

Jo shakes her head in response. Better to give Eliot time to recover than have her mother come home and see Eliot like this; she’d been worried enough not knowing.

“You sure?” Jo waves Ash off.

Give it an hour, at least.” Ash shrugs and gives a mock salute as he moves back into the bar. Eliot is rolling his eyes as he watches the exchange, and he makes another attempt at getting away, but Jo forces him back into the seat, hands pressing firmly against his shoulders.

“Take off your shirts.” Jo orders, warily eyeing the blood which continues to seep through the layers Eliot is wearing. Eliot sputters a little, and Jo is surprised. The Eliot she’s seen (admittedly only in five minute windows of arrival and departure) was never uncomfortable. He always knew the right lines to make her momma smile, and he’d never looked anything but composed. This Eliot, the Eliot clutching tighter at the buttons of his shirt, seemed like he had no idea how to act around her.

_I guess he never really anticipated having to deal with a girlfriend’s daughter,_  Jo thinks, though the word ‘girlfriend’ rings hollow in her head. There’ll be time enough for interrogation later, though, and right now she needs to know how serious the damage is.

Take off your shirts.” She repeats slowly – and if she enjoys watching Eliot squirm, who could blame her? “I need to see the wound. You know, to help you.”

Jo has to pull the second shirt over his head by herself because he can’t stretch that far, and she hisses through her teeth when she catches sight of the gash in his stomach. It doesn’t look like it’s cut too deep, though, and Jo thinks that all it’s going to need is cleaning and stitches.

”What were you doing?” she asks, dabbing at the skin around the wound, and Eliot shakes his head.

“You don’t want to know.”

Jo pauses in her movements. She wants to tell him that she does want to know; that it’s probably nothing compared to the stories the hunters tell around the bar; and that she  _deserves_  to know, especially considering he’s probably going to end up crawling into her mother’s bed tonight, but she doesn’t. Instead she fetches a first aid kit from a cabinet on the wall, and grits her teeth as she pulls out what she needs.

”I don’t exactly have much experience doing this.” She warns. “Mostly I’ve just watched.” She pours alcohol onto the wound, and Eliot lets out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a sigh.

”Why don’t you let me do it, then?” He asks, snatching for the needle she’s holding, but she moves it quickly out of his reach. Staring him down until she’s satisfied he won’t try again, she leans in to examine the injury.

”Don’t be rude to your nurse.” She chides softly, before concentrating on stitching the man up.

Once he accepts his fate, Eliot is actually a pretty good patient, and Jo suspects that he’s probably had enough experience to know that fidgeting is only ever going to make the process longer and more painful. Jo remembers that her father would never admit that, and she’d spend hours watching her mom fix daddy up after a hunt, giving him her best puppy eyes whenever he tried to wrestle himself away.

Eliot, she thinks, isn’t really like Bill at all.

When she finishes the stitching, Eliot peers to get a better look, and affords her an impressed eyebrow raise at her work. Jo smiles at that – she’ll take what she can get – but as soon as Eliot attempts to stand, her hands go to her hips and she does her best to imitate her mom’s infamous ‘ _don’t you dare_ ’ stare.

”You know, this is the longest amount of time we’ve spent in a room together.” Jo begins, and Eliot hesitates, something Jo thinks is akin to panic flashing across his eyes, until he slumps in his seat. Jo smirks.

”Yeah.” He agrees, resigned, “Never really had much time for talking, before.”

Jo grabs a chair, dragging it across the floor and swinging it round to face Eliot before sitting on it, her arms folded. She’s not her mother, she can’t do this talk the way it’s meant to be done, with a shot gun and looming over the guy like she’s twice her size, but she can damn well try. Eliot’s posture straightens a little, too, so Jo thinks she’s doing an alright job.

”Better start making time.” She tells him, to the point, “Momma and me, well, I can look after myself but we’re always going to be a package deal. It’s getting to the point where you’re going to have to bite the bullet now, right? Cut and run, or…?” Eliot clenches his fists at his sides, and the sound he emits is somewhere between a whine and a growl. Jo thinks about making a  _Wolfman_  quip to lighten the tone, but then realises that she doesn’t really want to.

”You know it’s not that simple.” He says, and Jo raises an eyebrow.

”I think it is.” She tells him, “Sure, you travel a lot, and sure, whatever you do is clearly dangerous…” Jo gestures to Eliot’s stomach and he snorts, “But it’s not like Momma hasn’t dealt with that before. Really, she deals with it every day – have you seen this bar?”

Eliot huffs, frustrated. “That’s my point.” He emphasises, “It’s –“ Jo stops him with a raised hand.

“Don’t you dare say that it’s ‘complicated’, because it’s not. Either you’re prepared to give her everything, to check in or even just  _call_  a little more often to stop her going mad with worry, or you’re leaving. I don’t care about your needs; I don’t care about some half-hearted crush or the need to let off steam after a something grizzly. All I care about is what you have to offer her.”

Jo refuses to avert her gaze, expression set and unblinking as she waits for Eliot’s response. The man watches her for a moment, and she can see the battle going on in his mind when he looks down suddenly, defeated.

”It’s not much. Not…enough.” Eliot’s hands are still fists, nails digging into palms, and the tension goes all the way to his shoulders. He looks about ready to go. Jo smiles.

”That’s all I wanted to hear.” Eliot looks up, brows furrowed, and Jo finds it amusing to note that even his confusion looks like anger at first.

”You…what?”

”I know you aren’t good enough for my Momma.” Jo responds, standing up and walking to the counter, pulling out her mom’s private stock of whiskey. “She’s a Harvelle – the best. I just needed to know that you knew you’re not good enough.” Eliot just seems annoyed, now, and she pours a glass, bringing it over as a peace offering.

“Still not following.” He says, and Jo laughs.

”I was never gonna be able to stop you from coming around. Mom’s as stubborn as I am, and I don’t think even you’d have been able to stop yourself, if she wanted you hear. But if I could just make sure that you’re going to spend your time chasing to catch up to her…Well, that’s as good as it gets, I think.”

Jo’s being honest, there. Someone who doesn’t think he has enough to offer is likely to give more of themselves, that was what Bobby had once told her, and her Mom deserves that much. Jo can’t ask Eliot to be around all the time, and she doesn’t really want to – she just wants to know that when he is there (and when he’s not) his priority is always going to be Ellen. She watches Eliot drain the glass, and then places the whiskey bottle on the table.

”Help yourself; I have to tend bar.” She says, not giving Eliot any chance to argue with her. She won’t give him her blessing, not directly, but she’s pretty sure he’s perceptive enough to realise what just happened. Jo pauses in the doorway, and puts on her best ‘hunter’ face. “I have to be the first one to tell you, though, because the competition’s pretty fierce: if you break her heart…just being  _human_  isn’t enough to be a match for me. Or the three other men in her life. Remember that.”

Ellen arrives half an hour later, and it’s clear that Ash called ahead because she moves quickly towards the back. Jo stops her as she reaches the bar, a hand at her elbow, and Ellen’s expression turns pained, obviously expecting another warning.

”He’s…not bad.” Jo concedes, with a smile that betrays more than her words. Ellen’s face lights up.


End file.
